How to do Keyword Research: A Beginner’s Guide

Are you looking for the best ways to learn how to do Keyword Research?

Then this post will let you delve into some best hacks that will enable you to do result driven keyword research with utmost ease and efficiency. In addition, you will get to know about some best/free keyword research tool that will alleviate your SEO task in the most competent way possible.

When you are in the initial phase of learning SEO, you come across a point that is often stressed most i.e. keywords.

So what is it about keywords that determine the success of your website in the digital space?

This is probably because keywords are the first step in optimizing a website to bring good organic traffic.

Keywords are important, there is no doubt about that but it’s even more important to apply relevant keywords in an article or blog. This is where keyword research comes in. In this article, we are going to let you know how to do keyword research in eight simple steps so that your website is search engine optimized.

How to do Keyword Research in 8 Simple Steps

1. Know what is the role of Keywords

Knowing what is keyword research and how it helps in optimizing Search Marketing Campaigns is very important to be a successful marketer.

The success of your business depends on how much traffic your website gets. When your website gets more traffic, you get more leads, and this results in more sales. All these are only possible through the use of the right keywords.

Right keywords level ups your game of on-page SEO and shoots your page to the top of Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

At the end of the day where your website ranks is decided by Google algorithm or in simple words, a machine that checks for a number of criteria and keywords constitutes one of them.

2. Why do Keyword Research?

Before learning how to do Keyword Research, the first question that you should ask is why you should do it.

Actually, Keyword Researchis the study of keywords to determine which are the most commonly used keywords in search engines by your target audiences to search on a particular topic or niche.

We need to do Google keyword researchbecause that not only helps you to get more traffic to your website but also helps you to understand more about your customers and their preferences or inclinations.

Moreover, keyword research also influences the marketing as well as the content strategy of your page.

Now, comes the most important step in ‘How to do Keyword Research Steps’, as here begin the actual proceedings.

In the selection of right keywords, do not make the mistake of blindly following a keyword research toollike the Google Keyword Planner (GKP). Yes, they do provide many keywords that are closely related but they do not give you any new keywords or a wide variety of keywords that your customers use in search engines.

In this case, the best way to come up with relevant keywords is to enlist the relevant topics associated with your business and create a niche topic list.

How you do that? Well, for example, if you sell women’s clothing, your relevant topics can be new trends, fashion show etc.

Now, niche topic consists of closely related topics that are very similar or are in the same compound, as that of your business. For example with women’s clothing, your niche topics can be: How to be fashionable, Trendy tops, How to dress for a date etc.

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4. Do your own Research and Use Tools to find Search Terms of Chosen Topic

As mentioned earlier, to master how to do Keyword Research, it is preferable to come up with keywords by yourself rather than just using the keyword research tools.The best practice would be to keep in mind about the relevant topics and niches of your business in the process of selecting the keywords through the help of free keyword research tools.

Free keyword research tools are best for beginners who are finding it difficult to come up with keywords that are more relevant on their own.

Some of the best keyword research tools that can be opted to optimize your website are Google Keyword Planner and Google Correlate. These apart from being free Keyword Research Tool can also prove valuable, as these are Google products, which mean you are getting suggestions directly from the source! (Provided you are targeting Google search engine)

5. How to do keyword research using Head, body and Long Tail Keywords

After figuring out your niche topics, it’s now time to zero in on your keywords.

As per the suggestions of ‘How to do Keyword Research Guides’, you can categorize Keywords in three groups Head, Body and Long Tail Keywords.

Head keywords consist of one word such as ‘jeans’, it doesn’t specify the intent of the searcher here. As it can be anything like women’s jeans, men’s jeans or kids’ jeans. Head terms are searched very frequently but these also have high competition and low conversion rates.

Body keywords, which are more specific, consist of 2 or 3 words like ‘women’s jeans’. These can get you a huge search volume.

But the most specific and the one that gets you more conversion rates are long tail keywords which consist of four or more words. An example of long tail keywords in the above context would be Women’s black Levis jeans.

6. Do analyze your Competitors’ Keywords

Always have an eye on what your competitor is doing and which keywords they are trying to rank their website against. This is going to help you evaluate your own list of keywords plus also gives you a further idea on sorting out relevant keywords.

Now the question is how to know what keywords your competitors are using?

For this, you do not have to manually search for it rather you can use another SEO keyword research tool called SEMrush. When you enter the domain in this tool, it tells you the keywords that are mostly used by your competitor.

This will give you a sense of which keywords you have to give more effort to rank on. But at the same time do not forget to make use of keywords that are relevant but has low competition.

7. Use the Google Keyword Planner Tool

While wondering how to do keyword research, you might have wondered which are the best free keyword research tools.

Where GKP gives the traffic estimates and search volume for keywords, Google Trends presents you with projections and trends of keywords. You can make use of these tools to narrow down the list of keywords you came up with by checking their trend history through Google trends.

8. Know about other Keyword Research Tools

Some of the other best keyword research tools that may come in handy in your endeavor of right keyword selection are SEMRush, Google Correlate, IMforSMB Bulk Keyword Generator, LongTailPro, KeywordIn and so on. Let us understand their key features-

This one is one of the best tools for you if you want to master how to do keyword research. In this one, you are only required to add your URL (or your competitor’s URL) and you can easily find all the relevant keywords for your site. You can use it to find long tail and short tail keywords. It can also provide you the details of Traffic stats along with AdSense CPC, Search Engine Reports and other details important for effective SEO of your site.

You can build your long tail term through this tool. It can be of great help in generating a large and result driven Keyword list. To learn how to do Keyword Research via Google Correlate, just see the image above. It lets you see that people who search for Diet Plan also search for some other related phrases. It lets you find the correlations of your primary keyword with utmost ease.

While some tools give you keywords suitable for all websites, others produce results for specific ones. IMforSMB particularly generates keywords that are most appropriate for local business, as it gives local keyword ideas. To learn How to do Keyword Research in IMforSMB, you first need to choose the business type then service type and in the last step, give your service location. After providing all this detail, just click on Generate Keywords and you will get all the results.

This one is actually a cloud-based stool that will help you do the most comprehensive keyword research. LongTailPro is a paid tool and you can use it to find the long tail keywords associated with your business niche. Opting for its Platinum version will help you find the most detailed keyword analysis. Its competition check is highly useful in choosing the most relevant keywords.

When you want a different combination of keywords, you should use Keyword In. This mashes up all the keywords together to produce different types of long tail keywords. It will let you find the best-suited keyword results for your site in the simplest possible fashion. Within a few seconds, you can choose your options and generate highly relevant results.

Master Keyword Research Skills Now!

On the concluding note, I hope you would have understood how to do Keyword Research in the easiest and most effective manner possible.

However, practical implementation of all these steps on live projects is very important to master the skills. -Joining the Digital Marketing Course will help you learn and master How to do Keyword Research like a pro Digital Marketer.

In addition, enrolling in an SEO Course is another but more affordable option to master keyword research and their right implementation in Search Engine Optimization Campaigns.

What Keyword Research Tool do you use to find out the most relevant keywords for your site? Share your list in the comments below.

A Certified Corporate trainer involved in Leadership and Life Skills coaching with a holistic 3Q approach. As an E-business Influencer and Digital Media Trailblazer, my forte includes Business leadership, Branding, Social Media and Digital Marketing, Online Advertising, Global Marketing Strategy and Refining of Marketing Processes.